Communications regulator Icasa has gazetted the final regulations on the use of “innovation spectrum”, formally settling one of the most contested questions in South African spectrum policy.
In terms of the newly published final regulations, the lower 6GHz band (5.925-6.425GHz) will be licence-exempt and available to wireless internet service providers (Wisps), Wi-Fi deployments, private networks and community operators on a shared basis – not auctioned to mobile network operators.
The regulations go further. Beyond the lower 6GHz band, which will now be used intensively to provide both backhaul connections and last-mile wireless broadband services using Wi-Fi technology, Icasa is also opening the 3.8-4.2GHz band on a licensed but discounted basis. That spectrum is expected to be used for so-called “standalone 5G” applications.
Paul Colmer of the Wireless Access Providers’ Association, who has spent years lobbying Icasa to open the bands to new wireless competitors to the mobile operators, described the lower-6GHz allocation as “the most important thing Icasa has ever done in its entire history” for the wireless industry, ranking it alongside the 2006 move to let Wisps build their own networks.
He said the 500MHz of clean spectrum was a step change for Wisps, which currently rely on around 125MHz of noisy, congested 5.8GHz unlicensed spectrum.
The extra capacity, he said, would let them deliver point-to-multipoint fixed-wireless services at hundreds of megabits per second and into gigabit speeds, putting Wisps in direct competition with fibre on capacity.
Wi-Fi and 5G Standalone
As a result of these developments, wireless technology will not only catch up to fibre-based internet services, but could eclipse them, offering speeds of up to 1Gbit/s or more over the airwaves with faster deployment times.
The regulations, gazetted on 22 May, cap a 14-month consultation that began with draft regulations published in March 2025 and included public hearings, coexistence simulation studies and field trials in Durban.
According to Icasa, all access will be mediated through a “unified spectrum switch” (USS) – a geo-location database that calculates operational parameters dynamically to ensure secondary users do not interfere with primary incumbents, mainly satellite earth stations and fixed-link operators.
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The licence-exempt status of the lower 6GHz is a clear win for the unlicensed Wi-Fi lobby in a global fight over the band. Wapa has argued that opening up 1.2GHz around 6GHz could generate R560-billion in additional GDP.
The final regulations cover half of that – the lower 500MHz – on a licence-exempt basis. The fight over the upper 6GHz band (6.425-7.125GHz) is unaffected and remains live, according to Colmer.
The new regulatory framework is notably designed to favour smaller operators. Section 2 describes the regime as “non-market-based, non-competitive” and an instrument for “non-dominant players, SMMEs and community network operators”. A cap of three contiguous coverage cells in the 3.8-4.2GHz band prevents any single operator from dominating it, and rural operators get twice the channel allocation of urban ones – four contiguous 10MHz channels versus two.
The regulations allow Wisps and other operators to deploy 5G Standalone in the 3.8-4.2GHz band for the first time, according to Colmer. Use cases include open-pit mining, industrial forestry, high-tech agriculture, university campuses, smart estates and autonomous-vehicle networks.
Mining is the strongest near-term opportunity, Colmer said: mission-critical safety systems on autonomous drills, shovels and trucks currently run on noisy 5.8GHz mesh networks that shed traffic when latency spikes.
The technical architecture rests heavily on the CSIR’s USS database, which was designed by CSIR chief researcher Luzangu Mfupe.
The protocol devices use to talk to the USS – the communication protocol to access unified spectrum switch – is also defined by the CSIR and is now codified as the standard. The Durban field trials were conducted by wireless internet service providers AdNotes and AfricaITA on CSIR infrastructure.
The regulations are not yet in force, however. Section 24 says they “shall come into effect at a date to be determined by the authority (Icasa) by notice in a Government Gazette”.
Read: Wi-Fi or mobile? Tug-of-war over 6GHz intensifies
A more substantive pending decision is the designation of the USS provider – the entity that will operate the database in practice. The regulations are silent on who that will be, but the CSIR is the obvious candidate given the technology dependency. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media